Florida: Redfish

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Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.

Redfish is very near the top of the list of species I want to catch most. They are a fish built very much to fit my style. They are handsome fish with variation in coloration. They feed in shallow water very frequently, where they can be sight fished. They are aggressive predators, taking a variety of streamers and topwater flies. They tend to live in beautiful places. 

And they are not easy to catch. 

That last one has become pretty clear to me. I got a handful of shots at redfish in 2017. I did not catch one. On Noah and my second trip, it was a top priority for me. I really, really wanted to get a redfish. Probably more than I want to get a tarpon. 

We had narrowed our focus to an area on the east side of the Gasparilla Sound. Sea grass was the key. We had to find areas where it was abundant. The area we were in was a good place to look, whereas many other flats in Florida have had huge reductions in the amount of bottom vegetation. Where the sea grass isn't, life is sparse. Where the sea grass is, life is abundant and concentrated. The loss of sea grass and the other life that relies on it can be traced directly to human activity.

Getting to our launch place just after dawn, I was confident we were in the right place. A huge school of mullet came into view as a patch of nervous water 50 yards long and 15 yards wide. They moved by in a long train as we geared up, jumping and splashing and rippling the surface, moving north. 

We went the direction they came from. We found grass. We found mullet. We found some stingrays. Then we found what we looking for. In the low light of the new day, a tail brushed the placid surface, signifying the presence of a feeding redfish. It was a beautiful spite.
And that's right where things went downhill.
In retrospect, this morning was the best chance I had at getting my first red. We saw the most tailing reds, we saw the most redfish in general, and there were the most good shot opportunities. And the half hour after we saw the first tail was the best window all day.

I blew it. I blew it hard. I made poor shots, I made bad drifts, I wasn't patient enough. I got interest from maybe 3 reds in that window. From then on, finding tailing fish was very, very difficult, and we found that targeting the cruising fish in that crystal clear was very tricky indeed. When you can see the fish coming from 90 feet away and you have a pretty good cast, you'd think it wouldn't be hard to convince one to eat. The fish that didn't spook from seeing the line in the air spooked from it and the fly hitting the water, and if they didn't spook from that they gave the fly and leader an extremely wide berth, so wide I knew they weren't even seeing it clearly. Then they'd probably spook from seeing me or the kayak.

What made this all the more frustrating was that some of these reds were just enormous, big enough to blow my expectations. There were plenty of 20 to 30 inch reds around, but I saw a few that were over 40 without a shadow of a doubt. So massive were these fish that I was shaking severely upon seeing them cruising down the white sand strips, though not enough to stop me from making what I thought were good casts. When the fish showed their disapproval and ran away, leaving huge boils and clouds of sand behind, I had to sit down to catch my breath.

There were snook around too, and they were even more snobbish. They were all laid up relatively close to. but not under, the mangroves, and generally near a creek mouth or around a point. These fish were impossible, at least with artificials and probably with live bait too. They were extraordinarily skittish and could see and feel you coming from a long, long, long way out. After a point I just stopped trying for them. There were plenty of more willing fish in the river. I might as well just admire these ones from afar and not bother them.

But my inability to get a redfish was bothering me. Hugely. After that first day we came back every morning. I never got another decent shot. I didn't catch anything there. Not even a sailfin or hardhead catfish, or one of the few big jacks or pompano we'd occasionally see close to the reds.

My inability to get a redfish stands out to me as the most frustrating part of my angling career thus far. Those fish haunt my dreams like no other. Believe me when I say that this post has been a painful one to write. I want to forget every one of the blunders I made targeting these fish, and every time I thought I had nailed it and the fish dissented. And because it will be a long while before I am in red drum territory again, those memories are going torture me for a while.
 It didn't ruin my experience completely, the flat we fished there was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. But I can't get those damned fish out of my mind.

I think, sometimes, you can want to catch a certain fish too much.